


tell me where have you been

by dancinbutterfly, suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [9]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Alpha Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fantasy Gender Roles, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen, Incest Mention, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Male-Female Friendship, Omega Jesse McCree, Parent-Child Relationship, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Young Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Young Jesse McCree, house arrest, rape mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22255114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinbutterfly/pseuds/dancinbutterfly, https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Jack’s in the middle of a lot of paperwork he doesn’t care about when Ana knocks on his office door.“Jack,” she says, and he looks up. The expression on her face is speculative. "Well, good news and bad news.""Who's dead?" he asks."Not quite that level," she says.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Jesse McCree & Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Series: mad elephants [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1114917
Comments: 33
Kudos: 289





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a medically necessary plot development. 
> 
> I (suzukiblu) wrote the first part myself, and then we wrote the second part together.

Jesse is on the roof, because it turns out he _can_ get up here without setting off his ankle monitor after all, and he’s smoking a cigarette because if he don’t he’s gonna go _crazy_ on somebody and he really don’t wanna do that. He guesses he should quit, if only to make his life easier, but nobody ever said he wasn’t a stubborn son of a bitch. 

So Reyes and Morrison are his parents, obviously. 

So Jesse has a lot of questions, obviously. 

Asking Reyes and Morrison sounds like a fast track to either another fight or a damned panic attack, though, and he ain’t particularly inclined to queue up either of those. 

So he’d needed another plan of attack, as well as that’d worked out for him. 

The logical thing to do had been to find someone else to ask at least some of those questions, which had taken a few hours of chatting up an awful lot of Overwatch agents. Some of them hadn’t wanted to talk to him, on account of the ankle monitor and of him being who he is as a person and all, but enough of them had that he’d managed to get a decent hit list together, and he’d made it through the list without any particular trouble. He’d asked some questions, got some answers, and don’t feel any less confused. A fair sight more embarrassed and stupid, especially after fucking _crying_ on Nicky, but no less confused. 

Nicky’d said to start with what he wanted, but he don’t even _know_ what he wants. Should it matter, that Reyes and Morrison are his parents? Does he care about that? 

Apparently he does, since he’s freaking out on people and wondering shit like this at all. He don’t know why he _does_ , though. He’s been perfectly fine with his life as-is, or at least was perfectly fine with his life as it was. He can just wait out whatever his sentence ends up being and then go home, and Reyes and Morrison won’t even bother him while he’s waiting. Allegedly, anyway. And maybe it’ll be boring as _hell_ , but he can do it. He’s done shit a lot harder than sit around bored, and Overwatch is a pretty cushy place to be bored in. 

Except apparently he cares that Reyes and Morrison are his parents. 

They’re so _good_ , is the thing. Real damn heroes and everything. And he’s . . . well, he’s wearing an ankle monitor and under house arrest. 

His heat’s due real soon now, so he’s gonna blame that for what a goddamn idiot he’s being right now. Yeah, he don’t get heated up like normal, but he still feels stupider during it. But he ain’t the man Reyes and Morrison would’ve raised and he don’t care what everybody else says, he just can’t believe they wouldn’t care about that. Who the _hell_ wouldn’t care about that? 

He ain’t even useful, like another SEP brat might be. He ain’t got any special thing he can do, he’s clueless in the gym, and he ain’t nothing like any of the cadets he’s met. He can shoot, yeah, but so can anyone. 

He wonders if he’s allowed to shoot, come to think. He’d even settle for the paintball gun. Probably not, though he’d have to actually ask somebody to find out and he don’t like the idea of asking. Amari could probably tell him, or at least check with Reyes and Morrison for him, but . . .

Well, he don’t know, really. Ain’t no reason not to ask. Ain’t no reason not to do a lot of things around here, really. 

He just don’t know what he _wants_. Somebody handed him a fucking miracle, and he’s got no idea how to handle the thing without breaking it. 

“Oh!” a surprised voice says from the door. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was up here.” 

Jesse turns and finds a pretty blonde A who looks closer to his age than anybody else he’s seen on base so far, and cocks his head. Her hair’s pulled up in a ponytail and she’s wearing a long white coat and an ID badge with a medical symbol on it, though Jesse can’t make out the name—her lapel’s blocking it. Maybe she’s older than she looks, he thinks, or maybe she’s just one of them genius types Overwatch seems to specialize in. 

“It’s a big enough roof for two,” he says after a moment, even as he’s wondering what she’s doing up here. Sneaking a smoke herself, maybe? 

“I don’t mean to intrude,” she says apologetically as she steps out onto the roof and lets the door shut behind her. “You’re Jesse Reyes, aren’t you?” 

“The name’s McCree,” Jesse says, exhaling smoke. They’d tried to put “Reyes” on his ID badge, too. He still wonders why it ain’t “Morrison”, but he ain’t gotten around to asking yet. He ain’t even _seen_ Morrison, so . . . 

“Oh.” She blinks, eyes flicking briefly to the ankle monitor. He takes a drag. “Jesse McCree, or . . . ?” 

“Jesse McCree,” he confirms. 

“Well. It’s nice to meet you,” she says, holding out a hand. “I’m Angela Ziegler. I work in the infirmary.” 

“A pleasure, sir,” Jesse says, taking her hand. He’d tip his hat, but he’s still wearing the Overwatch sweats. He’s been doing that a lot the past couple days, mostly so he could ask questions easier and not be reminding people he is what he is _quite_ so strongly. He’s asked a lot of questions, though, so he thinks it’s about time he changed back. 

He’s way too close to his heat, he thinks as they shake. It shouldn’t feel so good just to shake somebody’s hand. 

Then again, he ain’t been touching too many people here, so that might have something to do with it too. He thinks Morrison and Nicky are the only ones, and that was more them touching _him_. Well, and that one time Reyes dragged him off the gym floor by the scruff of his neck. But none of that was the easy way everyone in Deadlock shoves each other around or Ashe reeling him in to scent him up or anything like that. 

He lets goes of Ziegler’s hand. She straightens the lapels of her coat. 

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” she says, linking her hands together behind her back and looking up at the clear sky overhead. He still ain’t sure if she’s older than him or not. “I just couldn’t stay cooped up in the lab all morning.” 

“I thought you said you worked in the infirmary,” Jesse says suspiciously. 

“The infirmary here _is_ a lab, honestly,” she says. “It’s very impressive. And a bit mad science-y.” 

“Remind me never to end up in the infirmary, then,” he says. 

“You might need a checkup, actually,” she says, coming over to sit down on the roof beside him. She’s very polite about his personal space, oddly. “Or at least they might _want_ you to get a checkup.” 

“What for?” Jesse says, mystified. He couldn’t even say the last time he’d had a checkup. He’d seen a few doctors after they'd realized his heats weren’t right, but it’d been the bare minimum and he sure as shit hadn’t bothered after slipping the system’s leash. 

“To get an idea of your baseline health and make sure nothing’s going on,” Ziegler says. “Especially since your parents are SEP.” 

“My baseline health is fine,” he says. 

“Well, then it would probably be a very short checkup,” she says, tucking her knees up against her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “You’ve been here . . . how long, two weeks? How has the base been for you?” 

“Boring as hell,” Jesse replies frankly, because there ain’t much point in lying. He ain’t lied about much of anything since getting locked up here, come to think of it, except for walking around in Overwatch sweats like he belongs here. It just ain’t seemed worth it. 

“What have you been doing?” Ziegler says. “If you don’t mind me asking.” 

“I don’t mind.” He shrugs. Why would he? “Nothing. There don’t seem to be much to do ‘round here when your ID badge only gets you into the cafeteria and the gym.” 

“You could work out, I suppose,” she says. 

“Yeah, I ain’t the type,” he snorts. He wouldn’t even know where to start, anyway. 

“Can you get into the library?” Ziegler asks. 

“I dunno.” He shrugs again. “Probably not, I ain’t found another door I can get through yet.” 

“Didn’t the security officers tell you where you could go?” 

“Not really.” He takes a drag. “They just said not to lose the badge.” 

“Hm.” She frowns. He wonders why. “That doesn’t seem very helpful.” 

“It really ain’t,” he agrees. “I didn’t even know there _was_ a library.” 

“Well, there’s quite a lot of people on base,” Ziegler says. “We need things to do outside of work. Do you like to read?” 

“Who actually _likes_ to read?” he says. 

“I do.” She shrugs. “I just finished a very good murder mystery last night. A little gory, but clever.” 

“‘Gory’ sounds like the main redeeming factor there,” he says. 

“I could lend it to you,” she offers, and because he ain’t gonna have _shit_ else to do while he’s heated up, he nods. 

“Sure,” he says. His room is still empty of anything of interest—there’s clothes and toiletries and nothing else—so he can’t really complain about someone offering him a way to pass the time. “If it ain’t no bother.” 

“No, no bother. I’m finished with it, after all,” Ziegler says, then looks up at the sky again for a moment before glancing back to him. “Um . . . this might be a bit invasive, but . . .” 

“But?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow at her. 

“You smell like your heat’s coming on,” she says apologetically. 

“That’d be ‘cause my heat’s coming on,” he says. 

“Do you need a heat partner?” she asks. 

“No,” he says, taking another drag and bracing himself for—

“Someone to watch your door?” she asks, nothing pushy or wheedling at all in her tone. He immediately decides he’s gonna like her. He ain’t met many A’s who wouldn’t fuss at him at least a bit about that “no”. 

“No,” he says again. 

“Alright,” she says. “I’m available if that changes, I’ll be on-base for the rest of the week.” 

“Ain’t likely to be a problem, though I ain’t sure they’d let us den down even if it were,” he says, ashing his cigarette. If Reyes and Morrison don’t want him smoking or drinking or handling live ammunition, they probably don’t want him getting heated up with anybody either, whether he can get pregnant or not. He wouldn’t wanna fuck anyway, obviously, but who knows if they’d believe that? “But thank you kindly.” 

“Of course,” Ziegler says. “I’m sure you can’t know many people on base yet, and, well, most of them are older than us.” 

“I ain’t gonna be available if you rut,” Jesse warns her, just on principle. She looks a bit surprised. 

“That’s fine,” she says again. “I wouldn’t expect you to be.” 

Jesse laughs. She’s _funny_ , apparently. Ziegler just looks puzzled, though. 

“I mean it,” she says. 

“Sure,” he says, though he can think of maybe two or three A’s he’s ever met that he’d believe something like that from. And he’s met a _lot_ of A’s. Ziegler seems sincere, but that don’t mean she ain’t just a good liar. He’s good at telling from liars, but good ain’t perfect. 

“You haven’t met many nice people, have you,” Ziegler says. 

“You’re talking like there’s that many nice people to meet,” he says. 

.

.

.

Jesse thinks about asking for extra blankets or something so he can nest up proper, but he don’t wanna ask. It’s bad enough he’s gotta heat up at all; he don’t need to deal with navigating Overwatch’s requisition forms too. 

He nearly gets in a fight with a couple of pushy A cadets outside the cafeteria, but an agent breaks it up before anything gets too far. He hopes nobody’s gonna tell Reyes and Morrison, but he ain’t holding out much hope. Whatever; he’s gonna be locked in his room soon anyway. 

Ziegler leaves the book propped up outside Jesse’s door. It’s probably gonna reek of his pheromones by the time he’s done with it, but she’s the one who lent it to him knowing his heat was coming on, so that’s just how that’s gonna be. He picks it up and goes inside with it, tossing it onto the nightstand, and stares morosely at the effectively nonexistent nesting materials he has to work with. A couple sheets and a thin comforter and pillow do not much of a nest make. 

Well, ain’t like he hasn’t worked with worse. He makes sure the door is locked, then makes the bed up nice like he don’t usually bother doing and sits down on it, looking around the empty room. There ain’t nothing on the walls or door or floor; it looks like nobody lives here at all. It smells like it’s his, after how long he’s been sleeping here, but that’s pretty much it. 

The book smells a bit like Ziegler. Not in an aggressive way or anything, just he can tell it’s hers. Otherwise, though, he can’t smell anybody else, and that’s isolating but a relief. It’s been a while since he had a heat somewhere he couldn’t smell at least a couple Deadlock members all over the room. But he don’t know the people here well enough, and he don’t wanna be worrying about who might come knocking on his door right now. There ain’t been too many times anyone _has_ knocked on his door, but again: he gets a little stupid in heat. 

He should’ve grabbed some extra food from the cafeteria. He’s gonna be fucking _starving_ by the time he’s done smelling like candy to every damn A around. Whatever, though, like he’s never gone through a heat without anything to eat. He’s gone through them without anything to fucking _drink_. 

This is gonna be a real weird heat. 

Jesse lays down on the bed and picks up Ziegler’s book, because what the hell else is he going to do with himself. 

Think too much, probably, so he _definitely_ prefers the book. 

.

.

.

“A _little_ gory,” Jesse says as he hands the book back to Ziegler. 

“Yes?” She blinks at him as she accepts it. 

“You got a real high tolerance for gore, Ziegler,” he says. 

“Do you think so?” she says. 

“After reading that, I goddamn _know_ so,” he says. “Christ Almighty, woman.” 

.

.

.

Jesse eventually gets roped into that checkup, by which he means one of the nurses comes by to literally walk him to the infirmary and he’s pretty sure Reyes and Morrison would hear about it if he slammed the door in the man’s face, so he goes. The process is annoying and weird, but hell, at least it’s something to do. 

“And when is your cycle due?” the doctor asks as he sits there resignedly in the damn hospital gown, feeling ridiculous. 

“Just had it,” he says. The doctor blinks, and looks at the file in her hands. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, it’s not in here,” she says. “What day were you in the clinic?” 

“I wasn’t,” he says. “Stayed in my room.” 

“For a _heat_?” the woman demands. “Alone?!” 

“Did they not give you my file?” he asks, squinting at her. That seems like a thing somebody oughta have done. Seems Overwatch is as vulnerable to fucking up as any bureaucracy. Or whatever Overwatch technically is, he don’t actually know. 

“One moment, please,” she says, and swipes aside the file on her datapad to bring up another, eyes scanning rapidly down the page. Jesse waits patiently, ‘cause there ain’t much cause to put up a fuss about it. “You’re infertile?” 

“Yup.” He pops the “p” in it. 

“It doesn’t say why,” the doctor says, and Jesse shrugs. Nobody ever told _him_. 

“Just am,” he says. “S’why I don’t need no clinic.” 

“Yes, but it doesn’t say _why_ ,” the doctor presses, and he frowns faintly at her in confusion. She seems awful bothered. 

“Just am,” he repeats. 

“I need to do some bloodwork,” she says, looking stressed. “For _starters_.” 

“Great,” Jesse says with a bit of dread. This sounds like the start of something involved and annoying. The doctor walks out, muttering to herself, and Jesse sighs. Ziegler peeks in. 

“I thought I heard your voice,” she says. “Getting that checkup after all?” 

“Unfortunately,” he says with another sigh. 

“It’s almost time for my lunch break,” she says. “Have you eaten yet?” 

“No,” he says. 

“Do you want to go together?” she suggests. He stares blankly at her. 

“Sure?” he says. She smiles at him. 

“Oh good,” she says. “I get bored eating alone all the time.” 

“Sure?” Jesse repeats. He’s still not entirely sure he heard her right to begin with, but then the doctor comes back and finishes up with him and one of the nurses draws _way_ more blood than he is comfortable with losing and then Ziegler is waiting for him just outside the infirmary with her bag. They walk to the cafeteria together, and he remains mystified the whole time. Sure, she offered to be his heat partner before, but lots of A’s do that without actually wanting to _talk_ to you. Ziegler apparently does, for whatever reason. 

She lends him another book. He takes it, because he really don’t have much else to do around here. 

“This gonna give me nightmares?” he asks. 

“Did the first one?” she asks. 

_“Yes.”_

“Oh,” she says. “Well, then, perhaps.” 

.

.

.

It definitely does. 

.

.

.

Jesse should be talking to Morrison. Not Reyes—he ain’t ready to handle Reyes—but Morrison at least. He’s pushing three weeks on base and he’s barely had anything to do with either of them and hasn’t seen them since apologizing for the fight. He still can’t wrap his head around the idea they’d still want . . . whatever they want from him. If nothing else, he should be proving to them _why_ they don’t want that from him. Cut it to the quick, instead of dragging it out like this. 

It’s a problem, is what it is, and he should be handling it. 

He’s not, clearly. 

“Are you thirsty?” Ziegler asks, offering him a water bottle. He takes it. They’re on the roof again, because he’s gotta get some decent sunlight _somewhere_. Ziegler brought snacks, apparently just because of who she is as a person. They’ve done this a couple times now, and he’s had lunch with her most days since his checkup. It’s definitely better than eating alone, even if he’s still not sure what to think of her. He _likes_ her, so far, but that’s about all he’s got to go on. 

“Thanks,” he says, and cracks open the bottle to take a drink. 

“Of course,” she says. “Are you liking the book?” 

“Sure,” he says with a shrug. Honestly it ain’t his favorite genre, but it’s something to do, and he’s damn grateful for something to do. 

He really should talk to Morrison. If nothing else, he might be able to convince the guy to let him into a few more places around base. He wouldn’t mind picking out his own books, if nothing else. 

“We should go to the library after this,” Ziegler says, and he’s a little surprised to hear her thinking’s so close to his own. “You could pick out something you’d like better.” 

“Am I even allowed to take anything out of the library?” he asks. He assumes there’s a card involved, or something like that. Admittedly he ain’t spent much time in libraries. 

“I don’t see why not,” she says. “It’s not as if you’re going to walk off with anything.” 

“Funny,” he says, and she gives him an apologetic smile. 

“Well, it’s true,” she says. “Besides, aren’t you bored?” 

“I am so bored I could fucking _kill_ a man,” he says frankly, and she laughs. He ain’t entirely joking, to be honest. He could definitely kill some training bots, if nothing else. 

“We could go to the range?” she suggests. “They’ll probably let you in, as long as we’re together.” 

“You shoot?” he asks her. 

“Well, it’s not my specialty, but yes,” she says. “It seemed smarter to know how to handle a gun than not, if I’m going to be a combat medic.” 

“Is that what you’re gonna be?” he asks her, wishing he had half as much idea what he’s gonna do himself. 

“Yes,” she says. “That’s the plan, anyway. I still have to pass the tests.” 

“They hard?" he asks. 

"Very," she says. "I'll be studying for them for quite a while still." 

"Sounds like a pain," he says, and she smiles at him. 

"It'll be worth it," she says. 

“Really?” he asks skeptically. He’s gonna be honest, he still don’t fully understand what motivates the people in Overwatch. He’d like to say he does, but he just ain’t that good a person—or that altruistic. He can understand _factually_ what they’re doing, but he don’t feel it like a real thing that makes sense. 

It’s not that different from everything going on with Reyes and Morrison, really, so he supposes he should expect it to keep happening. 

“Really,” Ziegler says. 

“If you say so, Ziegler,” he says, and her smile widens. 

“I do, McCree,” she says. 

Nobody else calls him McCree; it’s Jesse or Jessito or Reyes, every time. He always shuts down the “Reyes” folks pretty quick, but then they don’t call him anything. 

It’s mostly Jesse, anyway. There’s already a Reyes here. 

.

.

.

They go to the range, which is just about deserted. Jesse’d have expected more people, but maybe it’s just a slow time of day. There’s a more normal range behind the weird obstacle-course one, turns out, and that’s where they set up. Nobody seems concerned about chasing him out, which he definitely ain’t gonna complain about. Angela lets him borrow her gun, which is a tiny little pistol with a surprising amount of kick. 

“Where’d you learn to shoot, anyway?” he asks, eyeing the paper target in front of him speculatively. Going for the bullseye every time sounds boring; he’d rather pick a pattern or something. 

“Here,” she says. “I take lessons once a week.” 

“That’s it?” he asks. 

“How often do you shoot?” she asks. 

“Normally?” He takes aim. “Every damn day.” 

“Does that mean you’re good?” she says, and he shoots the target through the head. 

“Good enough,” he says, and, because he likes her, “Hey, wanna see a trick?” 

“Sure,” she says, and he smirks as the world bleeds gray at the edges. 

.

.

.

“Get out of my way,” Ziegler says. The cadets in front of her do not. 

“What are you even doing here, you little thief?” one of them says—a male A. Ziegler glowers at him. 

“I didn’t _steal_ anything,” she says. “Randall’s test scores were lower than mine.” 

“And you definitely didn’t do _anything_ to make sure of that,” the female B says pointedly. Ziegler flushes angrily. 

“I didn’t _cheat_ ,” she says. Jesse ponders getting involved, but doubts Ziegler would appreciate it. A’s never do. And she’s a pretty chill one, but there’s only so chill A’s get. He’ll just keep on keeping on, and go on his—

The B shoves Ziegler. _Hard_. She falls back and hits the floor on her ass with a startled sound. 

Jesse’s down the full length of the hall and hissing in the B’s face before he even registers he’s moving. She recoils instinctively, then probably realizes she just recoiled from an O and bristles, drawing herself up. She’s pretty big, for a B. He’s bigger. 

“Back off!” he snaps. 

“ _Oh_ , so it’s like that?” the A says. “Reyes and Morrison must be thrilled.” 

“It is _not_ like that,” Ziegler says. Jesse bares his teeth. 

“This is none of your business, pup,” the B sneers at him. “Why don’t you go back home to your mama, eh?” 

In Jesse’s defense, she pushes him when she says it. Not that there’s much defense for breaking a cadet’s nose, probably. 

“McCree!” Ziegler exclaims. 

“Oh, that’s gonna go over like a lead balloon,” he mutters, shaking out his hand. The A slams him into the wall, knocking the breath out of him, and things degrade real fast from there. Ziegler is not much help, though she tries, bless her. For an A, she’s _real_ useless in a fight. 

Anyway, that’s how they end up sitting in the security office like a couple of high schoolers waiting for the principal. 

“The commanders are not going to like this,” Ziegler says under her breath, worriedly straightening her rumpled hair. 

“Ya think?” Jesse snorts, adjusting his hat and then wiping the blood off his mouth. He’s surprised none of his teeth are loose. That A hit like a fucking _truck_. 

This is not gonna be an auspicious beginning to talking to Morrison again. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ziegler says. 

“Somebody had to,” Jesse says. “They were fucking asking for it.” 

“I think you might’ve broken Teddy’s wrist,” Ziegler says. 

“I got my ass kicked by a guy named _Teddy_?” Jesse demands. 

“I think you did alright,” Ziegler says, which is awful merciful of her. 

“I really did not,” Jesse says. He hopes he _did_ break the guy’s wrist, if only for his dignity’s sake. Jesse’s pretty good in a fight, usually, but usually he ain’t fighting professional soldiers in an elite organization. Especially he usually ain’t fighting _two_ of ‘em. 

“Your mouth is bleeding again,” she says, and he mutters a curse and wipes at it. “There you are. I do appreciate it, by the way. What you did, I mean.”

“Get my ass kicked by a guy named Teddy?” Jesse asks. 

“Defend me,” Ziegler says, then smiles at him. “By getting your ass kicked by a guy named Teddy.” 

“Yeah, I ain’t living that one down,” Jesse mutters, and she laughs. 

He don’t know much about making friends, if he’s honest about it, but he wonders if this counts.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack’s in the middle of a lot of paperwork he doesn’t care about when Ana knocks on his office door. 

“Jack,” she says, and he looks up. The expression on her face is speculative. "Well, good news and bad news." 

"Who's dead?" he asks. 

"Not quite that level," she says. "Your boy's made a friend. And also gotten in a fight with two cadets." 

"What?" Jack says in bemusement. 

"Your boy's made a friend." 

"The other part, Ana!" 

"He broke one's nose and the other's wrist," Ana says. 

_"What."_

"He did rather well, really," she says. "The security officers would like to speak to you about it, though." 

"Oh my God," Jack says, pushing himself to his feet. Gabe is going to kill those poor cadets. And possibly some security officers, depending on how this all went down. He's just hoping Jesse didn't throw the first punch, but that's probably a vain hope. 

“Really, Jack, children fight,” Ana says, stepping back to let him out into the hall. 

“Fight _cadets_?” Jack demands. 

“In this case, apparently.” 

“Ana!” 

“Jack,” she says. “Relax, no one was seriously injured. It was just a normal scuffle.” 

“He broke a cadet’s _wrist_ ,” Jack says. 

“And that will mildly inconvenience them for a few weeks,” Ana says. “He’s an SEP child, of course he broke bones. No one’s seriously injured, that’s what matters.” 

“I feel like we’re operating on very different scales of ‘seriously injured’,” Jack says. 

“Hairline fracture,” she says dismissively, waving him off. “Do you need me to take a look at any of that paperwork?” 

“It’s fine,” Jack says, though he’s already feeling kind of frazzled and very little like finishing said paperwork. Who knows how long this is going to take? He’s never actually had to _deal_ with this situation, much less deal with it translated through Overwatch rules and regulations. This isn’t a schoolyard brawl; Jesse doesn’t even have a rank, and technically he should probably be in a cell, ankle monitor or no. 

The security officers must’ve just been _thrilled_ to have to deal with that. 

Jesse’s sitting outside the security office with one of the medical cadets—Ziegler, Jack thinks. She’s the youngest cadet in the program and she’s an A, and that’s all he knows off the top of his head. 

“Aw, hell,” Jesse says at the sight of him, grimacing. “Look, this _technically_ ain’t my fault.” 

“It was my fault,” Ziegler says. 

“Hell if it was!” Jesse says in obvious exasperation, and then looks back at Jack and folds his arms and, stubbornly, says, “They started it.” 

Jack doesn’t close his eyes or pinch the bridge of his nose. He is a leader of men, goddamn it. 

More important, he is a parent. He wanted this, desperately, for more than a decade. He can maintain his composure and parent now. 

So he doesn’t frown or glare or raise his voice when he asks, with a neutral tone he only possessed due to the training he’d gained over ten years as a diplomat, “What happened? Just, tell me all of it.”

“Er,” Ziegler says, and she and Jesse share a look that says a lot that Jack can’t read, because Jesse’s been avoiding him and he doesn’t _know_ him. It’s not a very subtle look, though, at the same time, and the question in it is mostly _should we lie?_ “Well, you see . . .” 

“They started it,” Jesse repeats in that same stubborn tone. “They were hassling Ziegler.” 

“Teddy—er, that is, Cadet Seaver and Cadet Ryder and I had a minor disagreement, Commander,” Ziegler says delicately, sitting up a little straighter and nervously smoothing her lab coat. Her ponytail’s still mussed, and her ID badge is crooked. 

“They shoved her on her ass,” Jesse says. “So I told them to fuck off, and they didn’t fuck off so I clocked ‘em.” 

“Cadet Ryder pushed him first,” Ziegler says meekly. 

“What were you fighting about?” He has a suspicion. There’s one thing that starts more fights than anything else when you get a group of people from different cultures in one place but he hopes it’s not that. He hopes it’s a personal dispute, something that can actually be sorted out by the ombudsman department rather than a pointless exercise that could only barely be soothed with giving the entire base another fucking global gender politics seminar.

“They knocked Ziegler on her ass, did you not hear me?” Jesse says with a scowl. Ziegler looks embarrassed, and fists her hands on her knees. 

“One of their friends was cut from the combat medic program, sir,” she says nervously. “I tested higher than him. They, um . . . think I cheated.” 

Oh thank fuck. This, Jack could deal with. “So, they’re jealous idiots. Good to know.”

“Jack,” Ana reprimands, but she’s hiding a smile behind her hand.

“What? Ziegler’s a pre-qualified handpicked recruit. There’s only a few of those and if those two chucklefucks can’t see the value in having extraordinary talent and skill on their side I need to know that now.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ziegler says, looking even more embarrassed. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.” 

“No, Morrison’s right, they’re fucking idiots,” Jesse grumbles, rubbing at his jaw with an annoyed expression. It looks to be bruising, so it’s probably sore. “Should’ve punched ‘em harder.” 

"No. Ziegler should have gone to a higher-ranking officer and reported it or at least taken it to the training rooms." He sighs. "Jesse, I get. You don't want to be here. You've made that clear, but Ziegler, this is your career. Do you understand that you're endangering that when you're very clearly in the right otherwise?" 

“Yes, sir,” Ziegler says with a wince, looking abashed. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” 

“Ain’t on her they came looking for trouble!” Jesse protests indignantly. “She ain’t even hit nobody, she was just trying to drag ‘em off!” 

"I thought you said they shoved her," Ana says. "Which is it?” 

“Yeah, _they_ shoved _her_!” Jesse says, and Ziegler leans in close to him and shakes her head. 

“It’s alright, McCree, don’t worry about it,” she says under her breath, glancing anxiously at Jack for a moment. He wonders how many other people here call Jesse that. “The commander is right, I should’ve just reported to a superior officer.” 

“Because _that_ ever works,” Jesse says, scowling. 

"I know it didn't work before but it will work now." Jack sighs. "At least some of the time."

“Yeah, of course _you’d_ think it would,” Jesse says. 

“I could at least have filed a complaint,” Ziegler says. Jesse gives her an incredulous look, like she’s suddenly speaking some completely different language. To him it is, probably. “I could have, really. I’m very sorry again, Commander.” 

"Just . . . fill out an incident report, Ziegler, because they will be and I want both sides of this story. You're not injured so you have until end of shift to submit it to my inbox. You know you're too valuable for me to waste on this petty bullshit so in the future, for fuck's sake, if you can't rise above and you think Jesse's right and won't go through proper channels, at least don't get caught, all right?" She nods and he turns to his son. 

His son. God. It still gives him a buzz like a good drink that his son is in front of him, alive alive fucking alive. It's hard to stay angry when his little boy is sitting in front of him, breathing and alive. He's faked plenty of things before, he can probably manage now. 

"And you. You don't work for me so I can't make your life hell with paperwork, so I've got to figure something else out, don't I?" 

“Please do not choose this as the situation to try grounding me over, Morrison,” Jesse says, making a face and jittering one of his legs briefly, spurs jangling. He looks ready to run off first chance he gets. “I got my ass beat by a guy named _Teddy_ , ain’t I suffered enough?” 

Jack gives a nod to Ziegler and says, "Dismissed." Ana doesn’t need to be told. She just follows her off. Jack waits until she's gone to give him a long stare, then tilts his head to the side. "I don't know. Have you?"

“That is the most cliche thing to say you coulda come up with, Morrison,” Jesse says, folding his arms and leaning back in his seat, legs crossed at the ankle. He looks suspicious, and also like he maybe doesn’t know where to expect this conversation to go. Considering the last “authority” figure he dealt with on a regular basis was that Ashe woman . . . “Far as I’m concerned, I ain’t done nothing wrong. Ziegler _definitely_ ain’t done nothing wrong. You wanna get fussed over it, ain’t my problem.” 

"I can assess whether Ziegler did or did not do anything wrong once I read the incident reports but I'm inclined to agree with you. I expect that between the security footage and the reports she'll be vindicated. She's an excellent cadet and a brilliant medic, a genius. It's why we recruited her. She wouldn't cheat as she simply doesn't need to. If either of you had bothered to talk to anyone at senior personnel we'd have told you." Jack can’t stop himself from dragging a hand briefly over his face because that’s the problem, isn't it? Jesse doesn't ever use his damn words. Had he had that problem as a child? He can't remember. He fucking aches that he can't remember. "If you talk to me, Jesse, I'll tell you anything you want to know."

“About what?” Jesse says, frowning. His eyes flicker briefly, sliding off Jack. He must already know the answer, so Jack’s not sure why he’s asking. Maybe just to be sure; maybe just to buy time. 

Maybe because he still can’t trust anything good, and all that that entails. 

"I don't know. The point is that it's up to you. If you want to know about the war, ask about the war. If you want to know about your family, ask about your family. If you wanna ask about Overwatch? Ask about Overwatch, though if it's classified I may have to tell you I can't let you know. Anything means anything. Or don't."

“I thought you were mad at me,” Jesse says guardedly, tipping his hat back to look up at him a little better. He looks like he’s trying to touch something delicate without cracking it. “You really want me bugging you with that kinda shit right now?” 

"I know you don't believe me, but I want you to bug me always." He rubs the back of his neck and tries not to sigh. He doesn’t want to break this either. "It's what I've wanted your whole life and I thought I'd never get the chance for you to before you came here. I thought—" 

He stops because he's pretty sure he'll cry if he keeps going and he doesn't think crying will help things. Jesse is a runner and seeing any adult cry is not the kind of thing that screams stability, especially not from Jack Morrison, Strike Commander of Overwatch. But God, he really did think that all the chances were gone, forever, the end, and the reality that they’re not makes his throat burn and his eyes sting and he may be Jack Morrison, Strike Commander of Overwatch, but he's also just a dad whose kid was fucking dead and now is alive, right in front of him again. 

He clears his throat and tries for his best smile, the real one, not the fake one he gives the press. "I always want you, Jesse, no matter what." 

Jesse looks hunted, briefly, and straightens up in his seat before standing up outright. He leans in, just a bit, and stares at him with this strange, intent look like God knows what he’s going to say next. Jack’s not sure if he should expect him to run off again after all, but hopefully even if he does he’ll at least internalize some of what he’s trying to tell him somewhere in there. 

“I believe you,” Jesse says eventually, drumming his fingers against the Deadlock tattoo without seeming to notice. “I just don’t believe you’re gonna _keep_ feeling that way. Ain’t you bothered? I’m nothing like you woulda raised me.” 

"No. But you're still you and I've read your file. What do you think I'm gonna find that's so repellent?" A horrible thought crosses Jack's mind because there's really only one thing he can think of that would change his opinion about this boy. He can't imagine Jesse doing it but he's worked all kinds of ops, seen all kinds of ugly things can happen to people, children, and no file is ever complete so he has to ask. "Son, did you rape someone?"

“What?! No!” Jesse sputters, straightening back up with an appalled expression and taking a step back from him. He doesn’t run, again. “That ain’t—look, Morrison, I ain’t no saint but I got _some_ fucking morals, okay? Jesus. I’m just a fucking thief and a liar, not a fucking _monster_.” 

"Not a monster, huh? So, I guess that means you're no cold-blooded murderer either? And I don’t mean in a fight or casualties of a job. I mean Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer shit." 

“No, I ain’t,” Jesse says with a grimace, folding his arms again and giving him another too-intent look, very obviously looking for something. A tell, maybe. “Can’t say as I know why you’d believe me, though.” 

"I believe you because you've got my big forehead and your mama's beautiful stubbornness and you're still the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my miserable life. I know you don't understand because you're still a kid and they fucked you up out there, they hurt you, and if I could, I'd kill them all for not getting you home to us but you're back now. So as long as you're not that kind of monster? Then I don’t care. I don't care. I don't fucking care what else you've done, Jessito. I've loved you more than my life since the moment you were born into these two hands because you're my baby and you always will be, even when you get to be an old man yourself." 

Jesse stares at him for a long, long moment, lips pressed in a thin line and shoulders tense, that hunted look on his face again. Jack could burn down the _world_ over that look, and barely resists stepping in closer and putting a hand on one of those too-tight shoulders. He wants to, but he doesn’t want to chase him off. 

“I _don’t_ understand,” Jesse says, digging his nails in against the tattoo. “I just—you’re _so good_. Both of you. You’re these big damn heroes who half the world and everyone here thinks are fucking perfect, and they’re probably right, and I can’t even _talk_ to you without messing it up!” 

Perfect? Yeah. That's cute. His family is seventeen flavors of fucked up and Jack's not one to judge, never has been. Whatever Jesse is waiting for? It isn't ever going to happen and he needs to get that through his head. Where he comes from is too broken and where he's come is too good to ruin. 

So he could tell Jesse there's nothing to mess up but he doesn’t think he'd be heard. Instead, he goes for something else, something uglier, something no one but Gabe knows.

"When I was a couple years younger than you are now, I caught my Beta brother from the litter before mine getting his O littermate through his heat. They were . . ." He shakes his head. 

He'd been twelve and it had been a nightmare living in his house with their father. Jack's big sister had gotten two O's knocked up before any of his litter had even presented. He still remembers being ten years old and watching the screaming fight his dad had had with Rob _(“Robins are fucking birds. I’m not a bird, Mom, Jesus.”)_ when Amy Farber had shown up and demanded a ride all the way to Illinois, where the law said a fifteen-year-old didn’t need a parent's permission to get an abortion, with his littermates clustered around him behind the screen door of the front porch. Their dad had shouted about responsibility and decency while Rob had yelled about how it was different for Alphas and a Beta like him couldn’t understand. He’d grounded her and called Amy a whore but in the end Rob had taken the keys to the truck she shared with her littermates and disappeared to Chicago with Amy for a week anyway. She was sixteen then, already a father with Danny Wharton having dropped out of tenth grade to give birth to a litter of triplets she'd bred on him last semester and Jack doesn’t remember anyone but their parents faulting her for helping Amy take care of things.

Their father had been done after Amy, though. He'd declared all his cycling Dynamic children basically on house arrest whenever they cycled as long as they lived under his roof. At first that hadn't meant much to Jack (he, Bobby, Sam, and Liz hadn't begun their cycles, after all) but then Chris had his first heat after Amy and everything had gone to shit.

For two solid years, the toolshed was a haunted space every few months as Mike stood guard over Chris’s suffering. He cried and begged and howled and tore at the walls at being trapped, denied, _empty, so empty, Mikey, please, open the door, let me out, I need it, I have to go, please_. Jack’s an Alpha and he hadn't known what a rut was like but Liz and Sam and Bobby _(“No, Mom, she’s Rob, I like Bobby better, please.”)_ are Os and it had terrified them every time, the deprivation their dad was forcing on Chris, not even letting him have toys, the way he went half insane from need, screaming and beating and clawing the walls. He always came out battered and bruised from throwing himself at the windows and doors, trying to get out. They'd tried not to act like it got to them but he could smell when they cried.

Harold Morrison hadn't flinched, had made it crystal clear that he was not taking any chances, though. No partnering. No toys to “encourage that kind of reckless behavior.” No non-family scents. He was ruthless with their brother’s heats and tried to be with their sister’s ruts but she was better with locks and threw a harder punch.

His litter tried to spend the night at friends’ places and when they were smaller it was easier but in middle school parents got stricter which was worse because they all knew things by then. 8th graders who had already presented or lived with older siblings liked to talk in shared classes and in hallways. Jack had never paid much attention but Sam had devoured every detail and brought it back to their shared room with the kind of graphic detail usually reserved for the porn streams their terminals blocked. The stuff he brought back about what other Os were doing to get by and make due if they couldn't get or didn't want an Alpha _("It’s so simple," Sam had said, marveling at his own hands, “And I mean duh, of course you can get stuff like food in!”)_ was how Jack had realized that Mike had been breaking their father’s rules all those years.

And then it got better. His father'd been a Beta and he'd just figured he broke Chris of the habit but one night during one of those better heats, Jack couldn't sleep. He'd just wanted some some orange juice when he'd run into Mike in the kitchen and caught him red handed with two of their dad’s tallboys out of the fridge, tucked under his armpit. One of Bobby’s baseballs was clutched in one fist, his stainless steel bat in the other, and under the other armpit, a container of Lysol disinfectant wipes that their mom used to wipe down the counter after making dinner. He'd looked so guilty that Jack had wanted to laugh for a second but then he'd registered what he was looking at. It was one AM and there was no reason to have a damn baseball bat for anything and Mike wouldn’t have drank while standing for a littermate's heat, even if he'd liked beer which he vocally hadn’t. _(“Wine or liquor man,” Mike had declared last time Rob had snuck booze in for the older litter.)_ Jack had thought about the length and shape of the cans, the width of the little league bat, what his own knot felt like as he jerked off, small as it was. His breath caught as the equation completed. “Mike.”

"Hey, Jackie."

“But . . . But, I don’t . . .” Jack had felt tears well up. “You can’t do that, can you?”

Mike had grabbed him by the shirtfront with his free hand. “He needs it. Jay, you don’t understand yet. You will, though. When an O you love needs something, you’ll do fucking anything, you’ll see.”

Jack hadn’t. Mike is a Beta. He didn’t have any reason to need to provide like that, why should he have needed to? “You’re not his Alpha.”

"No." He'd let go of Jack's shirt to pet his face. "No, I'm not, but I can give him what he needs. I have to. I can't take it. Can you? Can you stand it? I can't. Not when I can do something."

Jack hadn't known what to do then. He still doesn't know if staying quiet was the right thing but Chris hadn't been hurting himself anymore and when they'd saved enough money the two of them had gotten out together, so he hopes it was the right thing. 

"I never told our parents. I never told anyone but your mother." He sighs because it had been wrong, and he'd known it then just like he knows it now but it had been beautiful too, the way Mike had taken care of Chris, the way they'd loved each other. And who could he have told? His mom? She agreed with the old man. Social services? Jesse is a living witness as to why that would have been its own kind of harmful. He'd been a kid and he'd have lost no matter which way he'd turned. 

Their father had hurt Chris with his declaration that heats should be spent virtuously and naturally, tortured him during with deprivation even after Chris went to a doctor and got a prescription for aids and suppressants. At least in the beginning, Mike had stepped up and stepped in and defied him in ways Jack would never have dared to give his littermate what he needed to maintain his sanity. Jack had never gotten it but he hadn't wanted their father to butt in and ruin something that made Chris stop screaming through his heats either. So he left it be, even though Mike saw him, and told Chris so he knew Jack knew. 

To this day, Jack couldn't blame them no matter how sick or twisted their maladaptive survival was. They'd done what they'd needed to get through a harsh existence with a man who thought being an Omega meant going without and they'd made do.

He hasn't talked to Chris or Mike in awhile but he still calls them on the holidays and they still pick up. They're the only ones who do. They're still tangled up in each other, but they're the only ones who don't expect him to be anything in particular or who didn't fall down the rabbit hole of hillbilly heroin or crystal meth. They're broken, but they're why he didn't cut ties with the Morrison name completely when he'd mated with Gabe. He hadn't been able to do that to them. It'd felt cruel and Jack tried not to be cruel. And Mike had been right. When an O he loved needed him, turned out Jack would do absolutely anything. 

"They're still back in Illinois but they haven't lived on the farm in a long time. Not since they could afford an apartment." 

“Is that why everyone keeps calling me Reyes instead of Morrison?” Jesse says, looking . . . confused, mostly, and clearly not sure of what to say. He shifts his weight backwards, but still doesn’t actually go anywhere. “‘Cause your family’s—like that?” 

"My family . . . it was never like Gabe's. There wasn't any joy there, any connection." 

He doesn't think about his own littermates too much if he can help it. One hollow American dream and a lot of American nightmares were nothing to dwell on. Not like being a Reyes, where everything was vibrant, bright, and so fucking real. 

“Being part of the Reyes family's the best thing that ever happened to me. My own family . . . the love we had was, I don't know, wounded at best, I guess, and conditional and twisted at worst. I didn't want you to have that legacy when you could have one that was packed to the ceiling with all these great loves, and not just sappy movie loves but the way his parents love him and his sister and the way he loves Nicky and the way the neighborhood loves them all. That's what I thought you deserved so, I somehow got Gabe to let me name you Jesse Reyes." He can't help but smile. "I think I only managed because you'd worn him out with the whole being born thing." 

“Oh,” Jesse says after a long moment, looking uncomfortable and uncertain, and then looking . . . strange. He drums his fingers against his arm for a moment, then stills them, expression too-intent all over again. “Did you, uh . . . did you tell them? About me?” 

"I did." None of his littermates had replied to his messages but he'd told them. His parents had wanted to know the dynamic and he'd told them to get fucked. Mike and Chris had asked for pictures. They never had pups, of course they hadn't; it was the most they'd talked in their whole lives. "I told everyone I met about you. I was so happy about you I was annoying and everyone made sure I knew it." 

“Uh, no, I meant . . . did you tell the Reyes that I ain’t dead,” Jesse says, his eyes flicking away for a moment, guilty or embarrassed or . . . something. Something Jack doesn’t know him well enough to pin down, yet. “Or are you gonna, I guess.” 

Jack blinks. "Do you think Nicky knew to come here by magic, squirt?"

“I know you told _him_ ,” Jesse says, gesturing a little helplessly. “I just didn’t know if you’d told the rest of ‘em. What with . . . everything.” 

"We did. We told everyone. Your grandparents cried. Your uncle cried. Your cousins didn't cry because they don't remember you. Mrs. Fuentes two houses down who your abuela used to get into lawn care arguments with all the time knows you’re back and is making you a scarf because she crochets. Mr. Santino who owns the parking meters knows you’re back. Squirt, everyone knows."

“Please stop calling me that,” Jesse says, looking a little overwhelmed and sitting back down. “That is too damn many people, Morrison.” 

"I called you that all the time when you were little."

“We’re the same damn height, old man,” Jesse says in exasperation, drawing a line in the air over his head to make the point, though since he’s sitting it isn’t quite as effective as it could be. “I don’t understand you. At all. And I think I’m gonna have a panic attack if I think too hard about any of this.” 

"Breathe, Jesse. Just breathe."

“I am _breathing_ , thank you kindly,” Jesse mutters, then puts his head in his hands. “About ready to climb the walls, but breathing.” 

Jack gets down on one knee in front of him, resisting the urge to put a hand on his shoulder again but then just . . . putting the hand on his shoulder, because this is his _pup_ and he can’t not. Jesse doesn’t tense up, which he’s grateful for, but he doesn’t lift his head either, at least not at first. 

“You two are impossible enough,” Jesse says finally, raising his head just enough to look at him. He looks tired. “Dunno what to do with the idea of _more_ of you.” 

"They're not coming for you. No one is, except me and Gabe and even then, we're just waiting, hoping you decide you want us." He slides a hand up to the hair at the nape of his neck. "We'll wait as long as you need but you're going to have to tell us to stop, to go. We love you too much to give up now we've got you back."

“Everybody keeps _saying_ that,” Jesse says, a little helpless. He covers his face again for a moment, then steeples his fingers in front of it and looks back at Jack again. He really does have Gabe’s eyes, for better or for worse. “What if I just go home after this? You’d really let me say no and just fuck off?” 

"I would." He'd fucking try at least. "I don’t know about Gabe. He's black ops. I'm pretty sure he'd keep a tail on you for the rest of your life. But once the agreement with the higher ups is complete, we're not going to hold you here longer than that."

“Right,” Jesse says, smiling humorlessly for a moment and dropping his hands to grip the seat of his chair. He hasn’t shaken off or ducked away from Jack’s hand. “And if I _don’t_ say no . . . what happens then?” 

"That depends on what you want."

“That ain’t helpful,” Jesse says, his mouth twisting. “I don’t know how to do _any_ of this shit. Not anything with you two, or Overwatch, or . . . I don’t know, whatever else.” 

"There's dozens of branches of Overwatch and if you stay here, you can test to see what you're eligible to join. Then, you can enlist just like Ziegler. You scored off the charts on your aptitude tests because you're brilliant and Gabe told me you're a crack shot, which honestly doesn't surprise me. You Reyes and your guns." He rolls his eyes at that. "We've got global combat divisions, research teams in every branch of science you can think of, a few different branches of engineering, an advanced medical corps, and there's also a few more socially oriented branches that you're welcome to look at but considering how well you've made friends and how patient you've been thus far, may not be your speed." He tilts his head. "Basically, tell me what you want to be when you grow up and I can probably find you something that fits in Overwatch. You used to like to color. We do have an art department if that's something you still want to pursue." Jack shakes his head at himself because those had been coloring books. "Then again, most toddlers like to draw so . . . I'll understand if I'm behind on your interests.” 

“I like to shoot things,” Jesse says, looking overwhelmed again. It was a lot to hear rattled off all at once, Jack supposes, though he could’ve kept going for quite a while if he’d wanted to. “Ain’t much use for anything else.” 

"I doubt that. You're probably as almost as smart as Ziegler. Maybe in different ways but like I said, off the charts. But if shooting's what you like, you'd probably fit well on Blackwatch."

“Reyes and my total inability to have a conversation might interfere with that one,” Jesse says dryly, looking like he hadn’t believed a word about being anywhere near as smart as Ziegler or at least seriously doubted the veracity of whatever charts he was testing off of. 

"Yeah. That's a problem. He's dying to talk to you. He's the one who figured out who you were, you know. A mother knows and all that." Jack taps his nose. "He was sure. He was so sure."

“I remember,” Jesse says uncomfortably. He folds his arms again, looking down the hall. “Don’t make it no easier to talk to him.” 

“Maybe if we can figure out what makes it so hard for you? I don’t want you to miss out on something you want because of something we can fix.” And he cannot live with his pup and his O circling each other like this. It’s killing Gabe and it’s not doing Jesse any good either.

“I don’t think ‘who we are as people’ is the answer you wanna hear, but . . .” Jesse trails off with a loose shrug, his expression tired. “And I don’t rightly know what to do with neither of you but he’s the one who’s mad about it, so I can’t say there’s any fixing that neither.”

Oh. “Oh. Oh, you think he’s mad _at you_. That . . . explains a lot, actually.”

"Well he sure as shit ain't _happy_ at me," Jesse says, making a face. "Man's liable to bite someone." 

“He is,” Jack agrees. “The social worker who didn’t get you back to us. The foster families that didn’t love you. Every omnic that was on the other side of the war and even might be connected to the San Bernardino attack whose processors are still running. His mom for letting you leave with your aunt that day. Me for not believing him when he said it was you in that interview room. Himself for ever believing you were dead in the first place. He’s furious.” Jack rubs his forehead and sits back. “He should be. Hell, I’ll probably be furious too, when I get more used to being so goddamn grateful you're alive. But not at you. No one is mad at you. Trust me, he’s been mine for twenty years and I know him. What looks like angry on him is usually hurt or scared. When he’s angry with you, he will let you know in the most colorful terms exactly why, what you’re fucking up, and usually how to fix it to his specifications, because he’s a control freak.”

Most of the time Jack is happy to comply but the few times he hasn’t been have resulted in the only screaming matches of his married life. His family are not screamers. Gabe, on the other hand, shouts most of his feelings. 

“He was impressed by your escape attempt and he’s sad you don’t want to know him but he’s devastated your life went so far off the rails without us that Deadlock was your best option. Some of those things make him angry, but your mother is not angry at you. He’s angry at what happened to you.” 

Jesse doesn't say anything, his expression largely unreadable. If it's hopeful or doubtful or fearful, well, it's hard to tell the difference. He tips his head a bit, so the hat shades his eyes, and rubs at his tattoo. Not for the first time of the conversation, Jack can't help but notice. 

"It ain't like Deadlock was bad," Jesse says finally, his mouth twisted uncertainly. "Deadlock did me a fair sight better than the system ever did. And . . ." He trails off like he doesn't know where to go with that, then just shakes his head. "I did alright for myself, I mean," he says. "I ain't opposed to—I dunno, talking to the man. I just don't wanna end up in another fight with him." 

“You probably can’t avoid that. He fights with everyone. It’s his primary method of communication.” 

That’s not entirely true, there’s fucking too, but that’s only his primary method when communicating with Jack. For everyone else? It’s fighting. Alé got him into ROTC when he was a kid so he could be part of the only gang with a license to kill and retirement plan because nothing could stop Gabe’s fight and his mother knew it. 

“He’ll still love you after the fight is over.”

“I been screamed at by enough people in my life,” Jesse grumbles, leaning forward in his seat and folding his arms on his knees. “I still don’t remember nothing about you two. He was _definitely_ mad about _that_.” 

“I’ll talk to him. He does know how to control himself. I promise you. If you want to try we can maybe talk together? Or your Uncle Nicky can run interference. Seems like you’ve been getting on with him.” 

Jesse does relax a little at the mention of Nicky. Jack wills the envy away. It doesn’t work exactly but he can think through the pulse of _why not me why not me why not me_ so that’s something. 

“And I know you don’t believe me, but I’ll say it as many times as I have to. He’s not mad at you. We’re not mad. You were a baby. You can’t be expected to remember. He’s just heartbroken. His heartbreak looks like anger but that’s what it is, son. You don’t have to believe it but that doesn’t change the facts. I know that because he told me.” 

“If you say so, Morrison,” Jesse says warily. He brings a foot up on the seat of the chair and latches his hands in front of his ankle, frowning to himself as he very obviously mulls something over. Whatever he’s thinking, Jack just wants to hear it. “If I talk to him, he ain’t gonna be showing me old pictures and shit like that again, is he?

“I won’t let him.” 

“Okay,” Jesse says, still sounding guarded. Jack hates it, that their pup sounds _guarded_ just talking about just talking. “Then maybe. Not right now, just—later.” 

“We’ll be here.” Jack promises. “In the meantime, try not to break any more bones? Bruises and abrasions only.” 

“I wasn’t actually trying to break anything,” Jesse says, looking briefly—embarrassed? Is that embarrassment? 

Yeah. It is. Shit.

That’s what Jack was afraid of. SEP kids are basically comic book characters and unlike those who actually went through the program, they didn’t sign up for the power that landed in their laps and didn’t get the training. It’s not fair to Jesse. Sitting in front of him now, it just feels like another way he and Gabe let him down. “That’s okay.” 

“I’ll, uh, be more careful?” Jesse says awkwardly as he puts both feet back on the floor, still looking embarrassed. “Sorry.” 

“Do you know how?”

“Uh.” Jesse winces. “Don’t . . . hit ‘em as hard?” 

Jack can feel the smile crawl across his face, small and soft. That’s his pup, shy in the ways that matter and often slow to ask for the things he needs. Gabe has learned how to read him, to offer instead of waiting for him to get desperate. Looks like Jesse’s going to need that too. “Let us know if you want to train.” 

“Can it be with someone _not_ Reyes, if I do?” Jesse asks, making a face. “Because that man is a terror in the gym and I don’t care what those tests said, I am way too out of shape to handle him.” 

“I’d be happy to teach you if you want, but Gabe really is the best.”

He always has been. They may have given Jack command of Overwatch but everyone knows that Gabe’s the SEP golden child, the real star of the war. They don’t all know it’s because of the pure grief-driven thirst for meaning that Jesse’s death had burned into him. Gabe had loved combat before and had made it his life after. Jack was fine behind a desk. Really. 

“Okay, cool, so I’ll worry about that after I have any clue whatsoever about anything beyond throwing a haymaker,” Jesse says, gesturing with his hands as he speaks. “‘Cuz there _really_ clearly is a specific way to do that kinda shit and I _really_ do not know it. Reyes is bad enough without me having no idea what I’m even doing. Um. Not _bad_ , I mean, just—no, yeah, I do kinda mean bad.” 

“Tell me about it.” Jack laughs. 

“He’s terrifying?” Jesse says helplessly, his gesturing turning a little bit more anxious and his expression clearly stressed. “I mean, you know, obviously, but he is ten thousand times more intense than you, _which is saying something_ , and he wants me to know shit I just don’t know and I feel _bad_ that I don’t, which, I ain’t never felt bad about disappointing nobody in my _life_ , thank you very much. So I really don’t wanna be useless at _everything_ around him.” 

He pauses, then, and grimaces, dropping his hands to his lap. He looks . . . well, stressed. A little upset, a little restless; a little like he might walk right out of this conversation at any moment, except not quite willing to all the same. 

“Please don’t tell him I said that,” he says instead, still grimacing. 

Jack is struck by the novel sensation of his heart wrenching in his chest, like a hand has reached right into his rib cage, grabbed the damn thing, and twisted, hard. God. God, his pup cares so much what his mama thinks and that he’d trust Jack with that fact seems almost too big to bear. Is this jumble of feeling something he’d be used to if he’d had Jesse’s whole life to get used to him, Jack wonders, before he shoves the thought away. This is the son he has now, thank fucking God, and this the life he’s living so the way he acts and responds right this moment is the only thing that matters. 

“Your secrets are safe with me, Jesse. You have my word.”

“Uh. Thanks,” Jesse says, looking embarrassed again and glancing down the hallway. “It really ain’t—I’ve already been enough of a mess around Reyes, I don’t wanna be doing it _again_. That’s all. Been enough of a mess around here in _general_ , frankly.” 

“We don’t think you’re a mess. Gabe doesn’t think you’re a mess. Sometimes things just suck. No one’s fault.” It has taken Jack a long time to believe that but he’s really starting to. “It can get better if you let it.” That one is also hard but it’s easier with Jesse back. Their fucking miracle no matter what shape he thinks he’s in. 

“I assure you, Morrison, this is the most mess of a man that I have ever been,” Jesse informs him. Jack’s starting to wonder if he keeps making a point of calling him that just to put some distance between them, but can’t say for certain. “I’ll do some training, in case any more idiots try to pull some shit. And . . . maybe I’ll talk to Reyes. Just not yet.” 

“No rush. No one’s going anywhere.”

“I mean, where’m I gonna go?” Jesse says with a shrug, leaning back on his hands. “Only so many vents around here.” 

“And I think Torb may not have listened when I told him not to put sentries in there,” Jack agrees. 

“Ugh, Jesus,” Jesse says, making a face before pushing himself to his feet. “Alright. So . . . training. Gotta say my schedule is wide-open, so when’s good for you or whoever you wanna delegate to?” 

Like anyone else could handle him. Well. The Affondis, but they’re reservists and they’ve gone home already. “What’s your schedule look like tomorrow?” 

“Wide-open, like I said,” Jesse says, adjusting his hat before sighing to himself. “Guess I’ll be digging out those Overwatch sweats again. Morning or afternoon?” 

“Afternoon. I get off shift at three. I’ll see you at three-thirty?”

“Sure?” Jesse says, glancing over to him as his hands drop to his sides. He looks just a bit skeptical, like he’s not sure this is such a good idea, but as long as he’s willing to go through with it, well, Jack will settle for that for now. “Sounds like a good time. Well, no it don’t, sounds like I’m volunteering to get my ass handed to me, but I guess that’s better than breaking anybody’s wrist. On accident, I mean. Obviously.” 

“Of course. Don’t worry. You’ll hate it. It’ll be great.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)
> 
> and
> 
> [Tumblr!](http://dancinbutterfly.tumblr.com/)


End file.
